Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Year A - Pentecost +6 or Community Practice ⁶

July 20, 2014

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Because the presence of heaven come on earth is so elusive, there is parable after parable to try to clarify how much of it is present and how much yet to come. It is almost as if such a state were a constructed new element, present for a moment but O so evanescent. It is as elusive and temporary as John Wesley’s sense of “perfection”—here but for a moment before knowing that even a mature wholeness presages yet more to come.

So, once upon a time there was a sowing and in days yet to come there will be a harvest.

In the meantime we don’t go about purifying the field for to do so will leave it barren. Those who attempt the impossible task of stopping growth will ultimately be disappointed for the impetus of creation is always onward.

It is worth a moment of time to reflect on healthy and unhealthy seed—that which we differentiate by “seed” and “weed”, though both come from seed. In today’s church there is no more important overcoming of differentiation than that of that seed called “sex”. This gets us into an important category of “us”.

In every expression of sex there are healthy and unhealthy behaviors. It is a false split to name one expression healthy and another unhealthy. This is an attempt to turn relationship into technique and is bound to eventually be seen for the falsity it contains.

When we finally get around to the healthy/unhealthy distinction we will find our definition of who is in and out is broadened. It will have an effect on all the other discriminations of gender, race, culture, language, national origin, signage (cross, crescent, star, yin-yang, etc.), and the like. Regardless of who won the first World Cup or that latest, we can learn a larger “us” of soccer fan beyond support of any particular team.

High on the list of important scriptures hidden inside larger units is verse 30a: Let both of them grow together. This runs the short-run danger of weeds entirely choking out the non-weed seeds. It relies on a promise that health and wholeness will come through.

Without getting into the burning, which is not ours to do this early in the harvest game, let’s focus on being the best seeds we can be regardless of our degree of male, intersex, or female genitalia or affectional preference within any of those physical realities. How can we be the best seed available within whatever racial, cultural, national, language subset we happen to begin in. This is what we have to work with, not judging harvests.

Blessings on growing together—within yourself and between yourself and another and others.